Issue Position: Government Integrity

Issue Position

Government works best when elected officials are accountable for their actions. This requires transparency. The people need to know what is happening on Beacon Hill. It also requires that the people are willing to replace legislators when they no longer represent their views. As we learned in January of 2010, these seats to not belong to a political party, they belong to the people, and the people are ready to claim them!

Recently, I signed on as a supporter of Senate Candidate Tom Keyes Legislative Integrity plan (Tom is a candidate for the Plymouth and Barnstable District).

The Keyes to Good Government Plan includes:

- End the legislative exemption from the public records law.

- Prohibit the passage of controversial items at informal sessions. Once a Senator or Representative has submitted a written objection to the respective leaders of their chamber, then that item cannot be taken up during an informal session. In previous years, Senator Murray tried to push through the controversial wind energy bill during informal session.

- Require the State Auditor to conduct a comprehensive audit of the legislature yearly.

- Stop the bundling of amendments. This will create more transparency within the legislative process and within our state budgets.

- End the legislative exemption for the Open Meeting Law.

- End the legislative exemption from the Fair Procurement Law.

- Require bills to be in print and online for 72 hours before voting on them. Last year the final version of the state budget was passed at the last minute. After it emerged from the Conference Committee, the bill was not in print for 72 hours.

- Subject the judiciary branch to the public records law for administrative records only.

- Require the Ethics Committee to be bi-partisan. Right now the membership of the Ethics Committee is bi-partisan but is dominated by the majority party. Keyes wants equal membership for the two parties. This will ensure accountability of legislators rather partisan perfunctory investigations. As it stands now the committee is just a rubber stamp for the majority party.

- Prohibit legislative members from serving in leadership if he or she has been indicted. After Senator Jim Marzilli was accused of sexual assault, he was allowed to collect his extra pay as Chairman for months.

- Require that committee votes are recorded and published online.

- Prohibit felons from collecting pensions while incarcerated.

- Reform the public records law so the Governor's administration and state agencies have to comply not avoid it. The Pioneer Institute has long complained about the lack of compliance with the public records law. "Simple requests can take a year or more to fulfill, research and reproduction fees climb into the thousands of dollars and government offices claim dubious exemptions all leaving the public in the dark and denying their basic right to know."

Keyes sites the passage of the cutting of the cooling off period for legislators being able to work for casinos as one of the reasons that these reforms are needed.

I am proud to stand with Tom Keyes and thank him for taking the lead in his Senate race on this important issue.

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